Contents

The Liberal Party was open on creating coalitions or alliances with other parties for the 2013 election, as long as the politicians have the same principles as them. Secretary of Budget and ManagementFlorencio Abad said on April 7, 2012 that it was too early to make conclusions.[2]

Two days later, the Liberals revealed 14 names possible candidates in their ticket, these includes candidates that are being considered in the UNA ticket; this means there may be common names in both tickets.[3]

Senator Francis Escudero, who formerly campaigned for the Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC)'s presidential nomination in 2010 before resigning from the party and withdrawing from the race abruptly, said believes that the NPC and the Liberals "are in coalition with one another."[8]

It was announced on July 5, 2012, that the ruling Liberal Party (LP), Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC) and Nacionalista Party (NP) will most likely field a common senatorial ticket in the May 2013 elections.[9] A meeting between Aquino and Villar agreed to coalesce for the 2013 elections, and details, such as local candidates, will be dealt upon on further meetings.[10] Senator and Liberal Party vice chairman Franklin Drilon cautioned though that the agreement was "not yet sealed" as the distribution of slots in the ticket will also be a factor. The Nacionalistas had already endorsed four candidates in Senators Antonio Trillanes and Alan Peter Cayetano, and Representatives Robert Ace Barbers and Cynthia Villar.[11]

However, NPC official and senator Tito Sotto on September said that the three-party coalition might not be pursued as the determination of candidates at the local level remain as stumbling blocks in the formation of the coalition; NPC has more local officials than the Liberals and Nacionalistas. Meanwhile, Representative Mark Villar of the Nacionalistas said that they will stay put with their coalition agreement with Liberals, and that most issues have already been resolved.[12]

According to Joseph Emilio Abaya, the ruling party's spokesman, the independent candidates intend not to campaign with UNA which had also adopted them.[15] However, Loren Legarda, when asked with whom she will campaign with, said "I will campaign with the Filipino people."[16]

On January 26, 2013, it was announced that the administration ticket shall be called as "Team Pinoy". It is a play on words on "pinoy", an informal term used to denote the Filipino people, and "P-Noy", the administration's preferred reference to President Aquino, who has a "Noynoy" nickname. Angara said that "we decided to use ‘Pinoy’ to send the message that this campaign is for all Filipinos."[17] The coalition released its first TV advertisement the next day, with the "Team PNoy" spelling.[18]